Winter cometh

Yes, I know it has been a while since I wrote anything.Christmas has come and gone. The new year, 2025 has arrived. Yesterday was the inauguration of President Trump for a second term.

And our weather has gotten wonky.

Let me tell you what has happened. Jan 1 I left for CA to visit family and friends. I really needed to see my mom, I hadn’t seen her in quite a while. Overall it was a good visit. Then I spent a few days with friends, attended a wedding, etc. On Jan 5 we started the trek back home. Pasadena to Quartzite, on to Willcox, then into Las Cruces. As we progressed eastward the weather got colder. In NM, at Las Cruces we found ourselves facing snow, the possible ice. Honey, it got cold!! Instead of leaving the next day as planned, we spent a few days in Las Cruces. I had to go shopping for a jacket to make it thru the weather. I hadn’t planned on that much cold, so I didn’t have any good cold weather gear with me. We finally made it home Jan 12.

Right after we left Los Angeles, fires broke out. Pacific Palisades, Altadena exploded in fires. As of today PP has burned over 23,700 acres. Altadena (the Eaton fire) has burned over 14,000 acres. In addition there have been other fires, smaller fires. Even one near San Diego. Part of the problem has been the Santa Ana winds kicked up. They might be a bit late, the the Santa Ana’s always figure out how to show up.They are a wind weather phenomena in that region. And this year they managed to show up and spread fires, hamper firefighters, and change a landscape.

It is sheer chance that we managed to leave just before the fires broke out. We were supposed to stay a bit longer. But Reagan decided he had been gone long enough and he wanted to go home.

So just before fire broken, close to where we were staying, two blocks away they were under evacuation orders, we split for home. Just in time to hit freezing weather. It was a bit mad.

The good news was staying the extra time in Las Cruces worked to our advantage. We drove through El Paso on Saturday morning, traffic was light. We spent the night in Iraan, it puts the no in nowhere, then finished the drive home. We got home Sunday Jan 12.

Here it is about a week later and we have serious cold here in central Texas. South of where I am, down near Dripping Springs they got probably an inch of snow. Here in Central Texas we got just a bare whisper, little patches here and there. Yesterday we didn’t get a high of freezing, it was all of 30 degrees. Today we made it up to 37. Our region got hit with a cold front. It’s been cold, windy, and snowy in some areas. Even New Orleans got some snow.

Welcome to central Texas in the winter.

Merry Christmas

Yup, more strange weather. Today’s high should have been around 59, but we hit 81. It’s warm. It’s been such strange weather the other day, just before Christmas a tornado made a touchdown east of Waco. Yes, that was a confirmed tornado, in December, in central Texas.

And tomorrow, early morning, we are expecting thunderstorms. Christmas Eve we got hail. So it’s been some strange weather. One day is cold or cool, then the next day is warm.

And next week, the first week in January expected to be warm for this time of year.

Yeah. Texas.

Earthquakes

No, Texas has not begun having earthquakes. But…a couple of days ago there was a large 7.0 off the coast of Cape Mendocino, California. Needless to say with that kind of size there have been rather continuous aftershocks. And today there was a 6.1 off Adak, Alaska. Granted that area of Alaska probably isn’t receiving that much damage, it is part of the island chain off Alaska. It’s closer to Russia/Soviet Union than the body of the USA. But it’s something I note since I check USGS, United States Geological Survey, pretty much daily.

Today when I pulled it up I noted that there have been so many earthquakes we have reached 505 quakes at my reading. Since lately it has only been about half that number, I found that noteworthy. Granted, that is earthquakes that have been 2.5 and larger, over the past week. But I find it interesting that we have suddenly begun having this large earthquakes. For reference, there have also been a 5.1 in Indonesia, a 5.1 in the East Pacific Rise (ocean), and a 5.6 in El Salvador all within the past week.

Yes, the earth works on its own time.

PS – And for the record, I just checked and the weather station in my back yard says we have hit 81 at 1:22pm. Make that 83 at 3:22pm.

Fall or winter?

The weather has changed. The past couple of day have seen a definite cold front come thru. We have actually had some cold nights/early mornings. And then some days like today its cold, we have been sitting between 40-46, shooting for a high of 46. It’s also been raining, not a hard rain, just a periodic rain. It’s made today damp and cold. Linus, my dog is only allowed on a walk if he has a sweater on. It’s not like he asks for it, but I figure is I’m cold, my dog probably is cold.

But tomorrow we should hit 62, then Monday 80 – you have got to love Texas weather. God love Texas. Tuesday we drop back down to 55 for a high and a low of 33. I’ve turned off the sprinkler system for the season. Even tho I need the lawn mowed, I’m not going to push to find someone right now. Our 10 day forecast shows us settling into the mid 60’s. So I know if we get enough rain things will grow, but there’s also a chance we won’t get too warm. If it stays cold, but we get rain, the grass won’t grow too much.

I actually got one bell pepper on my pepper plant. It’s still on the plant for the time being. It’s small, it didn’t grow to full size. But it has given me notice that growing food here won’t be like it was before. But then we were gone, and it may have gotten heat stressed. One thing I did is I put the plant in a fabric grow pot, then put that pot into a small bucket. It may not be the right size bucket but the idea was that I could water the plant before we left on a trip, and make sure there was a little bit of water in the bottom. I wanted to try to make sure the plant had enough water while we were gone. What I found was that I need to be careful where I put a plant in the yard. We don’t have much tree shade, and probably not enough shade period given the Texas heat.

Needless to say, my pepper plant didn’t do much growing. I know it had water, so I’m attributing the lack of growth to the sun and heat. It could be not enough water, always a possibility. Then again, it could be something else, or a combination of things that lead to the lack of growth.

I guess the good news is that at least its still alive.

As for the other plants in the front yard, potted flowers mainly, the caladiums have died back from the cold. I think the rose is dead, but the coleus and zinnias in the pot are still alive. The chrysanthemums are doing better since I deadheaded them. The cool weather and rain also seem to be making them happy. One of them is blooming again. I did cut the grapes back. I bought a potted jasmine which I’ve moved closer to the house to give it a better chance to survive the winter. We had cut back the cannas, and they started coming back, but I think they will die back with the cold.

One other problem I’ve been having with this weather is my eyes are dry, as is my skin. But my eyes hurt because of the weather. So it’s been warm compresses on my eyes to help my tear production. Let’s hope it helps.

Sprinkles, not rain

I suppose you could call it rain if it’s moisture that comes down from the sky. But let’s face it, it you get less than a tenth of an inch, it’s not much precipitation. So last night was not much precipitation. We got all of 0.09 inches of rain last night. Today, and its afternoon and clouds are breaking up, we have gotten 0.22 inches, less than a quarter of an inch. Even added together it’s not much rain.

One thing of interest. This morning I noticed the recycle bin had fallen over, as if wind had pushed it over. I didn’t think much of it at the time. But this morning on Nextdoor there was a post about some straight line winds. Apparently the winds caused damage to a flea market near Belton. They were felt in the north side of Temple. I don’t know how much damage actually happened. But it does seem as if winds have occurred.

I’m noting this since I haven’t heard of straight line winds here this time of year before.

The only other good thing about our weather change today was a cold front came in. Today started with temperatures in the 70’s, but dropped into the upper 50’s. It felt good to take Linus out for a walk this morning. And this evening its expected to drop temperatures again. The forecast even has a low of mid 30’s later this week. But our days are still up in the high 70’s, even 80 degrees. So nothing quite like last year. Last year we got a lot of rain, but not this year. We could still use some rain, but when it might happen is anybody’s guess.

Let it rain

And it is! We ate an early dinner tonight, done like 4pm, and were sitting on the covered, screened patio in the back. My boyfriend was on the phone to his daughter when the rain began as a light shower. We had gotten a little shower earlier today, all of 0.08″ of rain. Not exactly something to write home about.

As he was talking the rain became more of a more than light shower, but not what I’d call still much rain fall. When we went out it was 81 degrees outside, hot and humid. By the time it started to rain we had dropped to 77.

Than it began to rain. It began to pour. We went from 0.08″ to 2. 77″ of rain in well under an hour. The street outside is flooded, I’m sure many of the streets in town are flooded.

Are we done? I don’t think so. We are forecast to have rain for another half hour, than it should start up again tomorrow morning, early. Well, we did need rain. But I’m not sure these kind of downpours are what we would like. It will fill dams, but it is so much rain in such a short time it will lead to flooding.

Our weather is changing. Our weather patterns are changing. And not for the good.

It was only a couple of weeks ago, we were in west Texas, when Roswell, NM got flooded. People died. Roswell is desert area but they got so much rain so quickly they had flash floods. I’m hoping we don’t have that happen here. We’ll see.

UPDATE:

Rain has now hit 3.65 inches here at the house. This should be the last of the rain for today, but more rain is due tomorrow. Another problem we have is the weather. Tomorrow is due to get back up to 80, then a one day drop to 75, then back up to 80. And we’ll stay right around 80 degrees for about a week. Too hot for this time of year. The weather is not nice to us anymore.

It Rained

It happened. The temperature dropped and we got rain. It wasn’t a lot of rain, but the other day we got half an inch of rain overnight. We got some before midnight, then rain continued after midnight. The total was 1/2 inch. That wasn’t a lot, but it was something. And they are saying more may be coming.

Today we high a high of 71, but this morning it was a low in the mid 40’s, 46 I think. A light jacket was in order walking the dog.

The forecast right now says a good chance for rain tomorrow and Friday. We’ll see what happens, but it’s nice to not have the heat.

Wicked weather

What a wild ride. We have had wild swings of weather. Over the weekend we had hot, record breaking hot. We hit 104 on Sunday, That broke a couple of records. It was, among other things the latest day we have had triple digits in this area. It was freaking hot!

And today Wednesday we had a cold front find it’s way here. It was a lovely day to walk my dog. Right now it is 10:30pm and its all of 48 degrees outside. We hit a high of about 74 today, and we should drop down to 44 tonight. It was glorious outside today. It was cloudy a bit, overcast, then later it was clear and sunny. And tomorrow should be similar weather – still cool.

Unfortunately it won’t stay quite this nice. The forecast is for it to warm back up, but not back to recording breaking temperatures. Later this week we’ll warm back up to the 80’s, with a possible 90 the following week. But at least overall the weather is cooling down.

I’ll keep you posted on how the weather shapes up. I really do hope fall is actually here. I’d love to have a cool down of weather.

Yes, it’s been a while

The past few months have been busy for me. Not all of it good, but busy nonetheless. Enough of me, on to the weather.

Hot. How else can I describe it. Just hot. It’s now early October and we are still sitting at 95 degree days. I admit I missed the entire month of August. I just skipped town and went on a cruise. I just didn’t want to deal with Texas heat. I’m glad I skipped town, but suffice it to say it is still hot here in central Texas.

Rumor has it we will cool down next week, but I’ll wait and see before I believe them. Trust but verify!!

Overall the weather here in the USA has been scary. The east coast has dealt with two hurricanes. One, Helene that hit the Florida coast as a Cat 4 late September. It then worked its way up to the Carolina’s wrecking havoc with rain and winds. It left power outages, flooding, property damage, etc. in its wake.

Then just the other day Hurricane Milton arrived. It didn’t go up the coast, it just crossed Florida. It entered as a Cat 3 and crossed the state. Florida has been left with power outages, severe damages, etc. I say etc. because in the couple of weeks between Helene and Milton, Florida didn’t have a chance to recover. It was in the process of recovering when Milton set it’s eyes on Florida. My guess is Milton compounded damages from Helene. I hate to say it, but it will probably take a while for Florida to recover from both storms.

Devastation abounds. Mother Nature has taken her fury out on the area. But we don’t know if she’s done, just getting warmed up, or what. Will another hurricane arrive? Nobody knows — yet.

The heat grows

Temperatures are up to the mid 90’s. It looks like summer is settling in. Starting this weekend we may begin hitting triple digits. After all the rain we had things are still growing pretty well. Things in pots are what actually have to be watered. I have a few pots out front, and they do need watering occasionally.

The tornado was just over a month ago, it happened May 22, and I have finally gotten my roof replaced and just the other day I got my fence replaced. It’s a lovely fence. It’s treated wood, someone said it is cedar. I know it looks good. The posts are metal and facing inside toward the house. I know most people have been wondering about why I had it put in that way. Well, the other week the city (I think) sent out vehicles and men to cut down trees in the back area. There is a railroad track back there, pretty close back there. My understanding is that the railroad track will eventually be turned into a walk trail. From what I understand it used to be the Georgetown Railroad. Now it’s just an abandoned track. But because the track is behind where I live, and I understand it will become a walk track, I don’t want the posts and rails facing the track. It would make it easier for any passing kids to jump the fence into my yard. Something I’m not keen to have happen.

Nonetheless, I’m glad to have my roof fixed and my new fence installed. Many of the houses in the area still have plastic and tarps on their roofs. I know I’ve seen a lot of roofs being worked on, so they are getting fixed. But there are a lot of them still in need of work.

I’m sure these people would be happy to get there homes fixed. Hopefully it will happen soon.